Why Nobody Will Buy a Color E-Ink E-book Reader

E-ink is one of the more unusual technologies to spring up in recent years. It's both more expensive and less versatile than LCD, a long-established product seen in everything from iPods to TVs. It's incredibly specific, but also incredibly good at its one job: reading text. 

E-ink e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook offer, in the opinion of myself and many others, the best digital book-reading experience available. The battery life is astounding (the new Kindle gets up to a month of battery life. An entire month!), they can be used outside without glare, and they quite simply look more like printed, physical ink and paper than any other display ever created. You can lose yourself in e-ink, which is about the best compliment I can give to a digital reader.

On the other hand, LCD devices in a similar package, including tablets like Apple's iPad, offer a passable reading experience on top of a whole host of features e-ink will never, ever be able to handle. E-book readers are better for books; tablets are better for everything else. So tablets and e-book readers exist in an odd sort of stalemate right now: neither can quite replace the other.

But I do believe that LCD and other, more modern displays (including Pixel Qi, LED, AMOLED, and countless other acronymic display types) will advance to the point where they offer a reading experience at least comparable to e-ink. Some have already been made--the iPad's IPS LCD display is better than expected in outdoor use, for example--and that's the wave of the future. And at that point, e-ink will die.

E-ink will die mostly because it fundamentally can't compete with tablets. That's why announcements like today's, in which E-Ink (it's a company as well as that company's main--or only?--product) claimed it will release both a color and a touchscreen version by early 2011, is so confusing. But color and interface are hardly the only obstacles e-ink has to overcome to compete with tablets: Its refresh rates make video largely impossible, it can't cram in enough pixels to make still photos look any more crisp than a day-old McDonald's french fry, and, most damnably, it's still extremely expensive.

I've used both color and touchscreen e-ink displays before. Before its untimely demise, I saw a prototype version of the Skiff newspaper reader with color, and I've used Sony's Reader Touch Edition as well. The Skiff's color was faded, like a photocopy of a photocopy, an extremely unimpressive display closer to old four-color comics than crisp digital imagery. Sony's Touch Edition suffers from enjoyment-killing glare and a slow response rate. While I'm sure the technology for both color and touch can be advanced, I'm not the least bit convinced that it'll ever get to the point where those features are competitive. By the time e-ink catches up to modern-day LCD (and that's assuming it ever does, which is a hefty assumption), LCD will have advanced as well.

Amazon showed that the way to make e-book readers sell like blazes is to lower the price to near-impulse-item territory. Its new $140 Kindle sold out of pre-orders almost immediately, and there's been more buzz around the next version than can be explained through hardware upgrades alone. It's a great reader, don't get me wrong, but its incredible sales numbers are due in large part to the price cut.

Color and touchscreen e-book readers would require a substantial increase in price, to accommodate the new technology. But that's exactly the wrong way to advance e-ink--the price needs to remain as low as possible. 

Why is E-Ink pretending that features like color and touch interfaces are important, necessary, or even desirable for its product? E-ink readers like the Kindle offer the best digital reading experience on the market--why muck it up with expensive and useless features?

E-ink may not have a long future, but until LCD can learn some very difficult new tricks, it'll survive. Diluting that purpose for half-baked progress to compete with tablets is the wrong direction for e-ink.

Original post by Dan Nosowitz and can be found here: http://bit.ly/cs8u3v

Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader (Updated)

If you just ordered a Kindle, stop reading now or you’re in for a giant dose of buyer’s remorse. Barnes and Noble unveiled a new e-book reader called ‘Nook’, and it is hot, both inside and out. 

Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s white plastic e-book reader, only instead of the chiclet-keyboard there is a color multitouch screen, to be used as a keyboard or to browse books, cover-flow style. The machine runs Google’s Android OS and it will have wireless capability from AT&T.

The $260 Nook–same price as the Kindle 2–is expected to be on sale at the end of November.

The Nook has the regular black-and-white E Ink display and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen. The latter allows users to browse books. The Nook also comes with built-in WiFi, 2GB of internal storage, MP3 player and supports open formats such as EPUB. Nook users have features such as bookmarks, and the ability to share books with friends for up to a fortnight through other e-readers, smartphones or computers.

Barnes and Noble has said Nook customers will have access to its online bookstore that includes books, newspapers and magazines. The Nook itself can hold up to 1,500 e-books.

Gizmodo, first showed leaked images of the Nook last week. The blog said that B&N will be discounting titles heavily in their electronic format, which is as is should be (no paper, printing or shipping costs). The Nook will also be able to get books from the Google Books Project.

Earlier Tuesday, Wall Street Journal, had a peek at an at ad set to run in The New York Times this coming Sunday. The ad features the line “Lend eBooks to friends,” and this has the potential to destroy the Kindle model. One of the biggest problems with e-books is that you can’t lend or re-sell them. If B&N is selling e-books cheaper than the paper versions, then the resale issue is moot. And lending, even if your friends need a Nook, too, takes away the other big advantage of paper.

In fact, this loaning function could be the viral feature that makes the device spread. Who would buy a walled-garden machine like the Kindle when the Nook has the same titles, cheaper, and you can borrow? The Nook is already starting to look like the real internet to the Kindle’s AOL.

Original blog by Charlie Sorrel and can be found here: http://bit.ly/30kb4g

Upstart E-readers Fade to Black as Tablets Gain Momentum

E-readers are far from dead but many are certainly gasping for breath. A shake-out in the e-reader market has put some smaller companies out of business, leaving the playing field clear for giants like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony.

The list of e-reader makers running into trouble has grown in the past few weeks:

• Audiovox has canceled plans to introduce the RCA Lexi e-reader that it demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show this year.
• Last month, e-reader maker iRex filed for bankruptcy, citing disappointing sales of its product in the United States.
• Plastic Logic, which also debuted its large screen reader at CES in January, has canceled all pre-orders for its device and scrapped plans to ship the product.
• Cool-er, one of the earliest startups to launch a Sony look-alike e-reader, has listed all its products as “out of the stock” in the United States with no mention of when new devices will be available.

“Companies that had neither brand nor distribution have failed,” says Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst for Forrester Research.

Price cuts by Amazon and Barnes & Noble, coupled with the shift in consumer interest toward more multi-purpose tablets, have also taken their toll on e-readers.

“You are seeing the same kind of proliferation and excitement in tablets now that you saw two years ago for e-readers,” says Epps.

After Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, e-readers became one of the hottest consumer products. The category attracted large companies such as Samsung and Barnes & Noble, even as lesser-known players such as Plastic Logic, Aluratek and iRiver jumped in.

Mostly Kindle clones, many of these e-readers were near-identical in how they looked and the features they offered. Almost all sourced their black-and-white screen from a single company: E Ink.

Meanwhile, Apple launched its iPad this year. At $500, it’s pricier than most e-readers, but offers relatively long battery life, a color screen and iBooks, an iTunes-like store for digital books. It may not be as ideally suited to reading as a dedicated e-reader, but many iPad customers are finding that it works well enough as a book reader, in addition to its many other functions.

Apple’s move sparked a price war in the e-reader market. Amazon dropped the price of its Kindle 2 to $190 from $260. Barnes & Noble released a Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook for $150, while a Nook with Wi-Fi and 3G capability now costs $200.

The price war put a squeeze on smaller e-reader manufacturers.

“As a result of the recent price drops in the market, our primary focus has shifted to international opportunities,” Audiovox told the Digital Reader website.

All this doesn’t mean consumers have completely fallen out of love with e-readers, says Epps. Tablets will outpace e-readers in overall sales, she says, but the shift toward digital books is here to stay. Forrester estimates 6.6 million e-readers will be sold in the United States this year. Approximately 29.4 million e-readers may be sold in the United States by 2016, compared to 59 million tablets.

Earlier this week, Amazon said for the first time sales of e-books are outstripping hardcovers. In June, Amazon sold 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers. In the first six months of the year, the company sold three times as many e-books as it did in the first half of 2009.

“In the e-reader market, price is coming way down and that’s the major consideration for purchase,” says Epps. “If a company can do cheaper and better devices than Amazon, Sony or Barnes & Noble, they still have a chance — but no one’s been able to do that yet.”

Originally by Priya Ganapati and can be found here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ereaders-consolidation/

$99 Color E-Reader and Social Platform to Challenge Amazon, B&N This Fall

Following recent price cuts on Amazon’s Kindle 2 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, a new manufacturer is set to stir up even more competition in the e-reader pricing wars with the debut of a $99 color device this fall.

The device, which weighs in at .42 lbs and features a 5-inch, 800×480-pixel, color LCD display, 2GB of storage, 64MB of RAM, 2G of Flash Memory and up to four hours of battery life, is just one in a line of devices Copia, a subsidiary of DMC Worldwide, plans to introduce.

Other devices include a 7-inch color e-reader for $129.99, two 6-inch black-and-white e-readers that closely resemble the Kindle 2 for $149.99 without Wi-Fi and $159.99 with Wi-Fi, and a $299.99 10.1-inch Wi-Fi-enabled color tablet.

“We want to make e-reading more accessible to a mass audience,” said Tony Antolino, senior VP of DMC Worldwide and Copia. “Not everyone can afford all of the higher end devices.”

 CAN COPIA REALLY TAKE ON AMAZON?

The question is whether Copia can compete with the established players in the space, several of whom have already captured large shares of the e-book market, established partnerships with major authors and literary agencies, and launched devices that have become household names.

If anyone can do it, I believe Copia can. It’s not just another big brand arriving late to the market; rather, it’s creating a new reading, discussion and shopping experience that’s radically different than what’s being offered by current e-book retailers.

While I don’t think its line of e-ink readers stand a chance against the cheaper, better Kindle 3, the social platform could be a major success. Readers who like to share and discuss what they are reading will discover an integrated experience that will lead them to purchase books from Copia’s store over one of its competitors — if Copia can offer enough incentives to get them to explore the platform in the first place.

What do you think of Copia’s forthcoming line of devices and social reading platform? Can a small manufacturer compete against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble?

Original story by Lauren Indvik. The full story can be read here: http://mashable.com/2010/08/03/copia/

Soaring e-book sales speak volumes

HONG KONG — After years of lurking in the literary wilderness, the e-book market has exploded with online retailer Amazon.com's digital volumes recently overtaking sales of their hardcover counterparts.

The increase in sales has come as Amazon slashes the price on its Kindle device amid heavy competition from Apple's multi-purpose iPad and e-readers from Sony and bookstore giant Barnes & Noble.

Underscoring the growth, Hong Kong's massive book fair, an annual event attended by almost one million people, wrapped up last week with visitors exposed to a brand-new section: digital reading.

Beijing-based Hanvon Technology unveiled a black-and-white tablet reader that comes with 5,000 Chinese and English book titles pre-installed for about 3,400 Hong Kong dollars (440 US).

Readers can download thousands more titles for as little as 20 Hong Kong dollars each on the device, which also lets users enlarge the typeface, take notes and look up words in the dictionary.

"One (print) book might cost you 100 Hong Kong dollars or more, and then you have to find a place to store it," Hanvon employee Bo Bo Wong told AFP. "With this, you can have thousands and thousands of books in one place," she said.

Mainland companies such as Hanvon, Acuce and Tianjin are taking on the likes of Apple and Amazon by pushing content tailor-made for the vast and rapidly growing Chinese digital market.

The total value of digital publications across all platforms overtook that of traditional print publications in mainland China for the first time last year, the General Administration of Press and Publication said last week.

According to the South China Morning Post, a recent survey by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science found that nearly a quarter of the 20,000-plus people it surveyed now do most of their reading digitally.

The newspaper quoted Chen Fuming, a manager of a major bookstore chain in Guangzhou across the border from Hong Kong, as saying Chinese book shops were in crisis.

"Even I myself now prefer to read fiction with my mobile phone," Chen said. "It's cheap and convenient."

New Zealand's Kiwa International, another company showing off its wares at the Hong Kong book fair, is using Apple's iPad as a platform for its child-targeted software.

The Auckland firm's technology lets children interact with books downloaded onto the iPad by colouring in story characters and swiping words that are then repeated aloud -- in nine languages.

"They can totally personalise the book," Kiwa's creative director Derek Judge told AFP. "And we provide a service to (traditional) publishers who want to enter into the digital arena."

Amazon temporarily sold out of its 189-dollar Kindle e-reader last week and on Thursday unveiled a new 139-dollar model that connects online by WiFi instead of via 3G networks.

"Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books -- astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months," Amazon boss Jeff Bezos said last month.

US bookstore chain Borders has also launched an electronic book store to tap into the market, which has seen late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson become the first novelist to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon.com.

But while British author and actor Stephen Fry is an avowed technophile, he doesn't think printed books should be written off quite yet.

"Printed books certainly will continue to exist," he said at the Hong Kong fair.

"I love them and will continue to collect them... (with) some books I just want to turn the pages myself."

Originally from Google News - http://tinyurl.com/32ta2tv

In Price War, New Kindle Sells for $139

SEATTLE — Amazon.com will introduce two new versions of the Kindle e-reader on Thursday, one for $139, the lowest price yet for the device. 

Amazon is hoping to convince even casual readers that they need a digital reading device. By firing another shot in an e-reader price war leading up to the year-end holiday shopping season, the e-commerce giant turned consumer electronics manufacturer is also signaling it intends to do battle with Apple and its iPad as well as the other makers of e-readers like Sony and Barnes & Noble.  

Unlike previous Kindles, the $139 “Kindle Wi-Fi” will connect to the Internet using only Wi-Fi instead of a cellphone network as other Kindles do. Amazon is also introducing a model to replace the Kindle 2, which it will sell for the same price as that model, $189. Both new Kindles are smaller and lighter, with higher contrast screens and crisper text. 

“The hardware business for us has been so successful that we’re going to continue,” Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters. “I predict there will be a 10th-generation and a 20th-generation Kindle. We’re well-situated to be experts in purpose-built reading devices.” 

When Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, Mr. Bezos described it as a must-have for frequent travelers and people who read “two, three, four books at the same time.” Now, Amazon hopes that at $10 less than the least expensive reading devices from Barnes & Noble and Sony, the new Kindle has broken the psychological price barrier for even occasional readers or a family wanting multiple Kindles. 

“At $139, if you’re going to read by the pool, some people might spend more than that on a swimsuit and sunglasses,” Mr. Bezos said. 

Some analysts are predicting that e-readers could become this year’s hot holiday gift. James L. McQuivey, a principal analyst specializing in consumer electronics at Forrester Research, said a price war could for the first time reduce at least the price of one e-reader to under $100, often the tipping point for impulse gadget purchases. 

Amazon has slashed the price of the Kindle at a speed that is unusual, even for electronic gadgets. By last year, the price of the device was to $259, down from its starting price of $399 in late 2007. In June, hours after Barnes & Noble dropped the price of its Nook e-reader to $199, Amazon dropped the price of the Kindle to $189. The Kindle DX, which has a larger, 9.7-inch screen, is $379.

With Amazon’s latest announcement, it is again waging a price war. Barnes & Noble offers a Wi-Fi version of the Nook for $149 and Sony offers the Reader Pocket Edition, which does not have Wi-Fi, for $150. 

Of course, price is just one factor people consider before making a purchase. The quality of the product, adequate inventory and appealing marketing are just as important, said Eric T. Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

But as the e-reader marketplace has grown crowded “there are lots of substitutes out there so the only way they can create demand is by lowering the price,” he said. 

Still, the iPad’s $499-and-up price tag has not stifled demand for that device. Though the iPad does much more than display books, customers often choose between the two, and are willing to pay much more for the iPad because it is an Apple product, said Dale D. Achabal, executive director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University. “The price point Apple can go to is quite a bit higher than the price point other firms have to go to that don’t have the same ease of use, design and functionality,” he said. 

Apple says it has sold 3.3 million iPads since introducing it in April. Amazon does not release Kindle sales figures, but says that sales tripled in the month after its last price cut. 

Two of the most compelling aspects of the iPad — a color display and touch screen — are elements that some customers have been yearning for on the Kindle. Keep waiting, Mr. Bezos said. 

“There will never be a Kindle with a touch screen that inhibits reading. It has to be done in a different way. It can’t be a me-too touch screen,” he said. Earlier this year, Amazon bought Touchco, a start-up specializing in touch-screen technology, but current touch-screen technology adds reflections and glare and makes it hard to shift one’s hands while reading for long periods of time, he said. Color is also “not ready for prime time,” Mr. Bezos said. 

The new Kindles, which will ship Aug. 27, have the same six-inch reading area as earlier Kindles but weigh about 15 percent less and are 21 percent smaller. The Kindles have twice the storage, up to 3,500 books. 

Original post by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2efqb3b

Amazon’s Exclusive New Publishing Deal Threatens to Fracture E-book Market

Just a few minutes ago, I received a tweet from Mashable with the news of Amazon's new and exclusive publishing deal. I could not help but retweet as well as re-publish on this blog. All of us involved in book sales and publishing need to take note of the deals taking place in the market. Who knows what might happen next? The piece by the way was written by Lauren Indvik and can be found here: http://bit.ly/bDIww1

Anyway, here is the piece in its entirety:

The Wylie Agency has signed a deal to bring the e-book editions of 20 classic titles, including Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, exclusively to Amazon’s Kindle Store for two years, the company announced Thursday.

Publishers were, unsurprisingly, less than pleased. Today, Random House declared in a statement that the trade publisher would “not be entering into any new English-language business agreements” with the agency, which represents such illustrious authors as Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie, “until [the] situation is resolved.”

“The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon for titles which are subject to active Random House agreements undermines our longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this agency as our direct competitor,” a spokesperson for the publishing company said.

The problem is that it’s still unclear — at least to Random House — who has the rights to publish the electronic versions of older titles, whose contracts don’t specify those rights because e-books simply didn’t exist when they were drafted. Random House sent a letter to literary agents in December 2009 asserting ownership of those rights, citing clauses in older agreements that allow the company to publish texts “in book form… in any and all editions.”

Agents and authors were surprised to receive the missive, given the outcome of a lawsuit between Random House and RosettaBooks LLC in 2001. According to the WSJ, Random House tried to prevent the latter from selling the e-book editions of works by William Styron, Robert Parker and Kurt Vonnegurt Jr.; the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in RosettaBooks’s favor, claiming that Random House’s earlier contracts didn’t cover e-books. A federal court of appeals affirmed the decision.

The Future of E-book Distribution

The latest dispute between the Wiley Agency and Random House is, then, just one in what promises to be a long line of disagreements — and not just about older titles. Perhaps inevitably, authors and their agents will increasingly make deals directly with the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s e-book division to distribute the electronic versions of their work.

Several, including Stephen King, already have. The bestselling suspense author released his most recent novel, Blockade Billy, as an e-book one month before releasing the hardcover version in the U.S. and Canada. He also distributed a short story, “UR,” exclusively through the Kindle Store in February 2009, shortly after the Kindle 2’s release.

Most recently, widely read Japanese author Ryu Murakami revealed his plans to publish his next novel on the iPad, stepping around his publisher and securing a greater share of the sales revenue in the process. According to Fast Company, publishing houses typically offer authors and agents 25% of the net proceeds of e-book sales. By releasing his novel directly in Japan’s App Store, Murakami and his partners will receive up to 70% of sales proceeds; undoubtedly, bestselling authors could negotiate with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. for even more lucrative deals.

It thus makes sense that authors and literary agents wouldn’t want to fork over e-book rights to their traditional publishers, when they could potentially profit more by making deals directly with e-book retailers. And traditional publishers are of course worried, as e-book sales are making up an increasingly greater share of overall sales; earlier this week, Amazon revealed that it is now selling more e-books than hardcover books.

What This Means for Consumers

In the end, however, it’s the consumers who will suffer most. While it’s great that 20 works of classic contemporary literature are now available in electronic format for Kindle owners, it’s not so great for those with a Nook, iPad or one of Sony’s or Borders’s low-priced e-readers.

Unless different arrangements are made, consumers can expect a frustrating future in e-book purchasing, in which popular titles and authors are made available only on certain platforms — at least until a set number of copies are sold or period of time elapses, at least. Amazon and its ilk will offer increasingly competitive deals to secure top selling authors, and users will have to toggle through an array of apps and devices to download the books they are looking for.

As Devin Coldewey of Crunchgear cheekily suggests, consumers may return to the “portable, DRM-free, region-agnostic” paperback for convenience’s sake.

Who do you think is in the right here, Random House or the Wylie Agency? Do you think the dispute and other recent developments bode well or poorly for the future of the publishing industry? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Image is courtesy Farm3 on Flickr (http://bit.ly/aAyndv)

A Trip Through Kindle: The Author's Perspective

If you have been reading TNW US over the last several weeks, you will have noticed that we have been covering the e-reader market nearly every day. Much is happening in that part of the technological kingdom, and it has important future implications.

Questions such as: will publishers maintain their current clout in the market, will authors increasingly publish their own work, will the average e-book price itself at $9.99, or $2.99 or $12.99, are all bouncing around without any clear answers. A quickly growing fan of the e-book idea and a recent Kindle convert on my iPad, I decided to test publishing on Kindle myself. Until you try, you do not know.


For the indie author, does self publishing on Kindle live up to the hype that it liberates you from every needing to find a publisher, or is it more a small scratch on a bigger itch that you can’t fix? The answer, not surprisingly, from my now personal experience, is somewhere in between. If you have the resources and the drive, I see no reason why you could not become a successful, selling author on the Kindle (et al e-readers) platform. I can also see how you could spend months writing a tract, and sell two copies. Let’s break it down.


Effort In, Success Out


I wrote a short essay, mostly gave it away for free (on Scribd, put a short version on HuffPo, published it on my blog, etc.), but also sold it on Kindle. This was however, no small side project. I had three separate people assist with editing over three drafts. I paid a graphic designer to draw a cover for the work. I promoted it where I could, and it performed well on Amazon, shooting (temporarily) to the #1 book on Kindle in the Atheist genre, and the #3 book on Atheism overall for about half a day.
Did it sell huge quantities? No. In fact, I doubt that it will recoup the money I paid to have it prepared. Worth it? To me yes, the project wasn’t about money.


However, there seems to be a feeling among many indie/smaller authors that Kindle is some sort of panacea, and that merely being ‘out there’ on Amazon (and iPad, etc) will ensure that people pay for their work. Here is a little secret that every blogger knows, but that many old-school printy people just don’t seem to get: the horse may drink the water, but you have to drag it to the damn pond. This is even more true when you expect people to actually pay for your writing, unlike in blogging where you give it away for free.


Being on Kindle means that you have made the first step to selling your work, but not that you will actually move a single copy. You have merely opened the door. Once you are on Kindle, the real fun begins. Promotion is the last thing that authors and writers like to do, even us online types, but it is part of the game, period. The more effort you put in, the more success you will receive.


I’m In A Niche!


If you follow e-books, you have heard the following statement: “E-readers are great! I can write on my narrow, narrow niche, and still reach people with my great content!” Small tip: niche genres are more publishable on Kindle than in print, but they are still niche. You will be effectively limiting your sales potential out of the gate if you write about a small one.


People protest this. “But there are millions of Kindles out there, so there must be thousands who also like to cross-stitch using organic hemp cat gut! They need my $24.99 guide!” Maybe, but see our previous point. It is doubly true in a narrow genre. If your work is mass market, you promotion efforts will have greater effect. If you reach 1000 people in your campaign, and your work is 50% mainstream, then 500 people might be interested in it. If your topic is 5% mainstream, then only 50 of those people are potential readers. The math makes niche, well, niche.


Be careful that you don’t paint yourself into a corner and end up with 50,000 words that no one will ever read. Not sure if you are too niche? Find the last book in your genre that was a bestseller. Not one in the last five years? Move on.


Is Kindle Easy?


If you want to do it poorly, yes. It sounds trite, but you can publish into Kindle and the other platforms simply, or you can do it well. My essay was only 3,000 words so I went with simply (poorly), but if you need chapters, an index, and the like, you are going to need to get nitty gritty into the world of HTML. Don’t want to play? Then don’t show up to the game.


Like it or not, Kindle is not kid’s stuff. It’s a professional platform that you can use to reach millions of readers. If you show up like an amateur, you will be ignored like a chump. If you actually expect people to give you their hard earned money, get ready to provide legitimate value. If you need help, go talk to the guru of Kindle, J. A. Konrath.


Amazon Versus The World


What does all of this say in the ongoing e-book wars? Initially do note that, despite all of my warnings, Kindle is still the simplest and best place for anyone who likes to write to self publish something that they have written. The Nook and iBooks platforms will catch up shortly, but for now, Kindle is the winner.


Of course, most of the books (I presume) that are sold on the big three e-reader platforms are not works by indie authors, but by big names on the bestseller lists. So, this Kindle edge I just stated is (probably) not that big a structural advantage, but it can’t hurt. Do remember that Kindle still has the most titles and usually the cheapest price of all the e-platforms. It’s competitors are experimenting with good products like NOOKstudy, but for now, Kindle reigns.


During my first run through Kindle, everything was smooth as a button. I have not a single complaint. I really can’t recall the last time that I tried a new platform (for me) and could say that. Have you tried Kindle? What do you think?

By Alex Wilhelm, who is a Chicago based technology blogger and entrepreneur. The piece can be found here: http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/07/17/a-trip-through-kindle-the-authors-perspective/

The Fast Company Guide to E-Readers

Although it seems that all we ever talk about these days is the tablet--how gorgeous the iPad is, how the tablet will kill off the netbook, a little bit more about the iPad--the more dynamic market of the moment is e-readers. Not a day goes by without the launch of a new model--latest being Asus's Lumibook, and with Marvell muscling in on the Chinese market--and, to be honest, it's all a bit confusing.

Apple has so blurred the boundaries between e-reader and tablet because of its iBook Store, that one could almost argue that the traditional, monochrome version (think Kindle) is almost obsolete. Almost--but that's down to the wondrousness of electrophorectic technology, the fancy (and un-trademarked) name for e-ink, that uses minimal power and is ace for reading in natural daylight. You can see the effects that the iPad has had on the market, however: Engadget uncovered a half-sized iPad simulacrum from Asus (it runs Android, so hints of the B&N Nook there) and, although Jeff Bezos recently claimed there's a color version of the Kindle lurking somewhere in Amazon's labs, it's E.T.A. is "some ways out."

So, when it comes to choosing the right e-reader for you, whatchoo gonna do, Willis? FastCompany.com has separated the wheat from the chaff, and please find, for your delectation, a selection of what we consider to be the most interesting upcoming (and already available) e-readers around. And not an iPad in sight. Well, almost.

Best browser: Bookworms among you may not even be aware that some of the models have Web-browsing capabilities, including the Kindle and the Nook. However, I'm going to blow the black-and-white thang out of the water and say, how about the Pandigital Novel? It's color, it's got Barnes & Noble's half-a-million-volume library, it browses, it's not out yet, but oh ho ho, expect this one to do well. At $200, it's less than the price of a--no, my lips are sealed.

Best book store: They're all pretty damn good, really--although you've got to wonder just how Google will sew up the market if they ever dare to dip their toes back into the hardware market, following their contretemps with the Nexus One. Sony has just announced it is to launch a content-distribution service in Japan, China, Australia, Spain, and Italy. I'll let both Nook and Kindle carry this one off jointly, as they've both got Gut--that's Gutenberg's 1.8 million free books on top of their 500,000 titles--and as I'm a nice girl.

Best for light travelers: As recommended by fellow FC-er, Dan Nosowitz (a more seasoned voyageur you will not meet) the $155 Sony Pocket Reader is, with a mere 5-inch screen and no bulky keyboard, significantly smaller than the competition (even pocket-sized, if you're not wearing skinny jeans). Its memory is beefy enough to allow you around 350 books on it, and it supports books lent from public libraries (any major city library should have an ebook lending system). It's a bit barebones--no search, no annotations, no wireless connection--but it's beautifully designed, absolutely teeny, and it can sometimes be found for $110, nearly impulse-buy territory. If you're not already in hock to the Kindle or Barnes & Noble stores, it's a great option.

Best for someone with a bag-carrier: Oh, without a doubt Plastic Logic's Que. They call it a ProReader, it looks just dreamy, and if ever you want to best someone with an iPad, then this is the e-reader to do it with. It's the business--I'm in no doubt that this is the kind of thing that Tom Ford's minions would be carrying for the great man himself. Price is a little sticky, however--$649 for the 4GB Wi-Fi version, rising to $799 for 8GB Wi-Fi and 3G. I asked, but it doesn't come in a cut-price 1GB version that you pedal yourself. Sigh.

Best apps: If apps is really the only reason you want to buy an e-reader, then why don't you just go to the Apple store and buy the--no, no, I won't say it. If, however, $500 is not the kind of wonga you're planning on shelling out, might I suggest the Nook? Although Android is not quite as hot on the app front as Apple, Barnes & Noble recently churned out a firmware update that lets you upload all kinds of fun and games on its second, color screen. Cost is, like the Kindle, $259.

Best value: If it's all about the money, then plump for the Libre Pro, Borders' riposte to Barnes & Noble's Nook. Costing $120, it comes with 100 free books and a Borders' desktop app. It reads the pretty universal e-book standard file, ePub, as well as .pdf files, has room (via an SD card slot) for 40,000 titles, syncs to your computer, and you can listen to pre-downloaded MP3s on it.

Best for bookworms: It's got to be the Lumiread, Acer's Kindle-esque e-reader, which should be out next month. Acer is staying schtumm about the price so far, but they're known for not beating too much money out of the consumer. Plus, it's got a dinky little scanner that you can use when you're in your local bookstore on a book's ISBN number and which links you to online sites where you can download the e-version of whatever tome it is caught your eye in the Macabre Horror section.

Best if you're not that into books: All right, I'm going to say it--the iPad.

Original piece by Addy Dugdale and can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/32av5rk

Will the iPad Undercut Digital Readers?

The electronic book market is looking increasingly hot, flat and crowded. A vicious price war has broken out among producers of digital readers because of Apple’s success with the iPad. Companies like Amazon hope that selling tomes across multiple devices will fill the profit gap. But competition in e-book distribution is heating up and could pressure margins there, too.

Apple has sold more than three million iPads in about two and a half months. While Amazon doesn’t give figures, analysts think it has sold a similar number of its Kindle e-readers over two and a half years. 

Investors haven’t missed the implications. Amazon’s stock has fallen 8 percent since the iPad arrived. That’s about the same as the market as a whole. The stock of Barnes & Noble, another e-reader seller, has fallen more sharply, losing a quarter of its value. Yet both are still richly priced compared with the market. Amazon trades at 40 times estimated earnings this financial year, and Barnes & Noble at 20 times. 

Meanwhile, Apple’s shares have risen 13 percent since the beginning of April, adding more than $30 billion to the company’s market capitalization. Of course, booming iPhone sales account for a large part of this rise. There’s a three-week waiting list for the latest version when you buy it online, despite some kinks with its antenna. But the iPad figures as well. Analysts’ expectations seem to be rising weekly. Several now predict Apple could sell more than 10 million this year. 

Devices like the Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Daily Edition e-reader are made specifically for reading, so they have gray screens that are easy on the eyes and batteries that last for days. The iPad, by contrast, has a bright color screen and a battery that drains more quickly. Its success suggests the perceived advantages of e-readers may turn out not to matter too much to consumers. 

After all, iPad users have already downloaded more than five million e-books. It may be that many people prefer a more versatile device that allows them to browse the Web, watch videos, read e-mail and download games and other applications — and act as an e-reader as well. That’s a potential nightmare for Amazon and other purveyors of e-readers. Think how jack-of-all-trades mobile phones have pushed out initially successful dedicated personal digital organizers.

Pricing trends seem to support the thesis. E-reader sellers slashed their prices this week, some by a quarter. But even corporate clients with giant orders for iPads can’t expect to score any discount. Basic e-readers now go for well under $200 and will almost certainly be offered for less than $100 by Christmas, according to Gartner. 

There’s a battle brewing over e-books, too. Before Apple’s iPad appeared, Amazon sold most Kindle books for $9.99 and lost about $3 a book, analysts reckon. That increased Kindle sales and helped establish both the e-book market and Amazon’s place within it.

The iPad has given publishers ammunition to demand higher prices for digitized books. The net result could be a wash, at least for Amazon. Citigroup estimates the Kindle and e-books combined will continue to account for about 5 percent of the company’s total sales and profit, in line with current levels. 

Apple’s bookselling rivals increasingly hope customers will buy e-books via applications that can be used on multiple devices, including iPads, the BlackBerry and computers. Moreover, e-readers’ ability to provide instant gratification via wireless downloads may mean the market for digital books will continue to grow. 

Since Amazon has a large stock of e-books, the Internet retailer’s reader app should have an advantage over some rivals, including Apple. It was the size of Amazon’s book collection that first established the company as a force to be reckoned with a decade ago.

But Barnes & Noble has an e-book app not so dissimilar to Amazon’s, and plenty of content. Google is preparing to open its digital bookstore this summer. And the talk is that technology companies like Dell and Nokia might see the opportunity, too. 

If most consumers aren’t locked into a specific device, they will presumably shop around for the best bargain. After all, it’s easy to download multiple apps. Electronic books may be gripping for those who buy them. But once competition sets in, the bottom lines of the companies hawking them may not make such a good read.

Originally posted by Robert Cyran of Reuters Breaking News, and can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/technology/28views.html?src=busln

Why e-Book Reader Sales are Seen Heading South

Is the window of opportunity for e-book readers with embedded broadband going to close not long after it just opened? That’s the forecast being made by UK research firm Informa Telecoms & Media — it believes device sales will peak in 2013 and then decline by 7 percent the following year because instead of purchasing dedicated e-book readers, consumers will shift towards other multifunction devices with mobile broadband, such as Apple’s iPad or an anticipated Android tablet, to read e-book content.


Indeed, one of the key reasons for the recent success of readers like Amazon’s Kindle or the Barnes & Noble Nook is also a limiting factor in terms of multipurpose functionality — today’s  E Ink displays that make such devices attractive aren’t as effective for activities like browsing the web or viewing video. New display technologies are needed to support those use cases. Two that come to mind: Qualcomm’s Mirasol low-powered color panel and Pixel Qi’s innovative dual-mode screen, which can use ambient light instead of a power-hungry backlight as needed. With its next-generation “E Ink mode” you can watch a fast-frame movie on the Pixel Qi screen — skip to the 9:30 mark of my CES video to see how well this display works.


As a voracious reader and former Amazon Kindle 2 owner, I see both sides of the page when it comes to dedicated e-book readers. On the one hand, I love the paper-like reading experience a dedicated E Ink reader provides. Combine that with a light device that doesn’t require a battery recharge for weeks and it’s no wonder I took my Kindle everywhere I went. But after just one day with my iPad, I sold my Kindle, mainly because I didn’t want to tote both devices and the Kindle for iPad application provides the same experience as the original. Plus, although everyone’s eyes are different, I don’t buy into the eye-strain argument in favor of E Ink. I’m already looking at an LCD display for 10-12 hours a day on my computers — what’s another hour or two?


In other words, I didn’t wait until 2013 to switch from a dedicated reader to a multifunction device. And with the expected onslaught of slates and tablets this year — by and large, e-book devices use a slate form factor — I imagine I won’t be the only one. One portable device with embedded broadband for web, social networks and other online activities appears to be the future. There’s still a market for standalone e-book devices — folks that prefer E Ink over LCD or people who would rather check email or visit the web on a traditional computer will opt for an e-book — but these consumers will be in the minority as people will opt for converged connected devices. For continued growth and success, e-book readers have to add new functionality in order to compete for consumer dollars.


This market isn’t really about hardware, anyway; it’s about the sale of content — and Amazon is still expected to earn a billion dollars on digital books, even if its Kindle hardware doesn’t continue to sell well. That explains why Amazon created a Kindle for iPad application and why Barnes & Noble today outed its reader software for Apple’s slate: More content on more devices equals more money.


Original post by Kevin C Tofel.
You can read it here: http://gigaom.com/2010/05/27/why-e-book-reader-sales-are-seen-heading-south/

Amazon to launch Thinner, Sharper, Faster Kindle in August

According to “two people familiar with its plans”, Amazon will be introducing a thinner Kindle in August. It will have a sharper screen, but will still be gray scale and will not feature touch-control.

If true, it would seem that Amazon is doing the right thing by quietly improving on its simple e-reader with adding price-rising extras. After all, why bother with a color Kindle when you can buy an iPad and read Kindle titles on that? Instead, a slimmer Kindle with sharper text would further differentiate itself from bulkier tablets with shorter battery-life and lower-resolution screens that don’t work well outdoors.

The lack of touch, though, is a shame. When anyone who has used a modern smartphone picks up the Kindle for the first time, they touch the screen. Touch would also let the Kindle lose the ugly keyboard, which would in turn allow for either a bigger screen or a smaller case, either of which would be big improvements.

According to the Bloomberg article, there will be one further improvement. The page “turns” will be a lot quicker. At last.

Amazon.com Said to Introduce Thinner Kindle in August [Bloomberg]

Piece by Charlie Sorrel
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/e-books/#ixzz0rRIMA0WZ